Complementary medicines : hospital pharmacists' attitude, knowledge and information seeking behaviour

Background: The use of complementary medicines (CM) is increasing in the community. Hospital pharmacists need to expand their knowledge of CM and have access to and become familiar with reliable information sources. Aim: To ascertain hospital pharmacists' knowledge on adverse effects of CM; and to investigate their information seeking practices and preferred sources of reliable information on CM. Method: Anonymous self-administered surveys were sent to a stratified random sample of pharmacists across Australia. The questionnaire was designed to address five areas on CM: experience and attitude, knowledge, information use, preference for information sources and demographics. Results: 388 eligible responses were received (23% response rate). 81 respondents were hospital pharmacists. Around half of the hospital pharmacists sought information on CM at least monthly. The most frequently sought information was drug interactions, contraindications and adverse effects. A variety of sources were used to find the information, with the most popular being the Internet and MIMS, however, the most useful were specific web sites and drug information phone services. Only 36% of hospital pharmacists knew that hepatotoxicity is a potential adverse effect of black cohosh and 38% knew that glucosamine can interact with warfarin. Conclusion: Many Australian hospital pharmacists had a limited knowledge on the adverse effects of common CM. Although hospital pharmacists often seek information on CM, many were unable to or unaware of where to access reliable information.